The City of Saskatoon is pushing the provincial government to provide public consultation while it works to identify sites for two new emergency shelters.
Last Friday, the province announced $19 million in funding for two new emergency shelters in the city to house individuals with complex needs.
The shelters are said to be designed to provide a medically-supervised and secure place for people to go to for up to 24 hours.
“They want to decrease the number of beds at existing shelters because there have been issues that have arisen from a large volume of people utilizing those shelters — so just making them a little bit smaller and dispersing them over different areas of the city,” Saskatoon city councillor Darren Hill said.
He explained the city will identify the sites and present them to the province.
Ultimately, the province will determine whether the site will be approved or not.
According to Hill, the city has passed two motions, asking the province to engage heavily with the public for consultation on where the site is going to be located.
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They have also asked the province to provide names and potential service providers, as well as operating plans for security and safety around the site.
“We’ve asked for that, but it’s not required. If it is currently zoned, by law, we don’t have to do public consultation unless we have to rezone, and it goes to a public hearing.”
Hill said that whether public consultation is required or not, he believes it is necessary for the successful implementation of a new shelter.
“We have learned from emergency shelters in other locations that public consultation is a necessity. We have to talk to the residents if it’s going to be close to a residential area.”
He noted that the current Emergency Wellness Centre was built on property that was already zoned for that type of infrastructure and the city didn’t need to do public consultation.
“Was it right that we didn’t do public consultation? That was not necessarily the city’s call at the time, that was a provincial decision,” he said.
“But I think from that situation, the province has recognized the importance of public consultation before these go in.”
Hill said that the city and province should consider looking into light industrial areas for the new locations, instead of residential neighbourhoods.
He said as long as the area has washroom facilities, sleeping arrangements and public transit accessibility, the site should be considered.
Saskatoon Chamber CEO Jason Aebig said that outdoor space needs to be considered as well when choosing a location.
“We talked about the need to require facilities to provide adequate, on-site, outdoor spaces in proportion to the number of people they are sheltering to safeguard the dignity and wellbeing of those who are needing those facilities, but also ensuring that those who are using the shelters but are not necessarily conducting all of their activities inside the facility (or) are not creating challenges for those outside.”
Aebig also noted the new shelters should pay attention to managing tripping hazards, garbage on the street, exterior monitoring by the operator and special accountability for loitering.
“We recommend going beyond ‘good neighbour agreements’. We suggest developing some stronger standards and even penalties to incentivize proper property maintenance and management.”
He also voiced that public consultation is going to bring the new shelters the most success.
“The ultimate success of these facilities is going to turn on the extent to which they are able to function and operate in a safe manner and in a way that’s, generally speaking, welcomed by the neighbours of these facilities,” Aebig said.
“If we go about dropping these facilities within the zoning plans but don’t necessarily meet the needs or expectations of commercial stakeholders, businesses and others, then we are going to see a repeat performance of conflict and challenges that we have seen over the last 10 years.”
Aebig said the city has learned too much to go down the same path as previous shelters.
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